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This Punpedia entry is about boat puns! Whether you’re looking for a boat name, halfway through a pun battle, or just training your nautical wordplay muscles, we hope you find this entry useful! As usual, if you’re looking for visual puns (images, memes, etc.), scroll down to the bottom of this entry.

The boating and nautical area of word play has a strong history, perhaps mostly because of the tradition of naming a boat or ship with a pun. On top of this, there are so many sub-categories of boat word play: sailing puns, anchor puns, rowing puns, naval puns, ship puns, fishing puns, and it even has a decent overlap the infamous ocean puns category – one of the more popular categories of puns. So in this Punpedia entry we’ve done our best to create and collect as many examples of maritime word play as we could. If you’ve got a nautical pun that we’re missing, please submit it in the comments at the bottom of this page!

Boat Puns List

Each item in this list describes a pun, or a set of puns which can be made by applying a rule. If you know of any boat related puns that we’re missing, please let us know in the comments at the end of this page! Without further ado, here is a big list of boat puns:

Encourage → Anchorage: As in “Stop anchoraging him!”.

Not → Knot: As in “Tell me this is knot happening.” and “Knot on my watch.”

Not → Naut: As in “Last but naut least” and “Fear naut!”

Boat → But: As in “Last boat not least” and “Close, boat no cigar.”

Saboteur → Saboateur : As in “Captain, I believe there’s a saboateur on our ship.”

Reckon → Wrecken: As in “Do you wrecken we’ll make it through the storm?” and “I am a force to be wreckened with.”

Wreck: The word “wreck” has a few meanings other than shipwreck, including slang ones (like “Ohhh rekt!” and “He’s an emotional wreck.”) and the regular, formal ones (Like “My wedding was wrecked by the storm”).

Indecency → In decent sea: As in “The flagrant in decent sea of these images!”

Carved → Craft: As in “She’s craft out a nice little niche for herself.”

Of course → Off course: As in “Off course I like being the navigator!”

Wake: The “wake” is the trail of disturbed water left by a boat. Example sentences: “Wake up!” and “I’ve been awake for days.”

Shit → Ship: As in “Oh ship, we’re in trouble now.”

Boy → Buoy: As in “Oh buoy, I can’t wait.” and “Good morning, buoys and girls.”

Most → Mast: As in “This is mast amusing!” and “Mast boats have a sail.”

Must → Mast: As in “We mast sail towards that island!” and “We mastn’t get too confident”.

Mas* → Mast*: Sometimes a word that begins with “mas” can be made into a boat pun by a replacement of “mas” with “mast”: mastacre (massacre), mastculinity, mastonry, mastochistic, mastquerading, mastage (massage). Obviously we can also make puns when a word starts with “mast”: master, masterpiece, masterminding.

Grief → Greef: As in “Good greef!” and “He was overtaken by greef.”.

Naughty → Knotty: As in “He’s a very knotty boy!” and “Knotty or nice?”.

Scenic → Seanic: As in “Let’s take the seanic route.”

Sooner → Schooner: As in “Schooner or later.” and “I’ll call her schoon“. A “schooner” is a sailing ship with two or more masts.

Doc*→ Dock*: If a word begins with “doc”, it can often be switched with “dock”: docktor, dockument, dockumentation, docktrine, docktorate, dockumentary.

Aphrodisiac → Aquadisiac: As in “I heard that water is actually an aquadisiac.”

Alchoholic → Aquaholic: As in “I’ve been an aquaholic for 5 years now.”

Sure → Shore: As in “Are you shore?” and “She shore is strong!”.

Barge: As in “You can’t just barge in here like that!”

How → Scow: A “scow” is a type of flat-bottomed sailing boat. As in “Scow could you do this to me?!”

Are c* → Ark: If a word starting with “c” follows the word “are”, then a play on “ark” can be created. For example: “Many ark called but few are chosen” and “Most people aren’t happy unless they ark complaining.”

Summon → Salmon: As in “He salmoned a spirit from the underworld.” and “Please salmon the duke, I have an urgent message!”.

Someone → Salmon: As in “Will salmon please help me?” and “Salmon’s at the door”.

Crea* → Cray*: Many words that begin with “crea” can be used to make shoddy crayfish puns. For example: crayture (creature), craytive (creative), crayte (create).

Crayon: The word “crayon” includes “cray” – the short version of “crayfish”, and so can be used as a pun.

Slope → sloop: A “sloop” is a type of sailboat with one mast. Example sentence: “Hold on! This is a steep sloop.”

*sk if → As skiff: If the word “if” follows a word that ends in “sk” then we can create a play on “skiff” (a type of shallow, flat-bottomed boat). Example sentences: “Before giving it to her, askiffshe wants it.” and “We’ll be back by duskiff we can fix this motor.” Many more words fit this pattern: riskiff (risk if), deskiff (desk if), taskiff (task if), diskiff, maskiff, briskiff, flaskiff, kioskiff, baskiff, whiskif, muskiff.

*s if → As skiff: If the word “if” follows a word that ends in “s” then we can create a play on “skiff” (a type of shallow, flat-bottomed boat). Example sentences: “As skiff!” and “You sound as skiff you’re a bit sick?” and “Ask us skiff you need anything!” There are obviously thousands of words ending in “s” so you can create your own puns using this formula with the help of a list like this.

Y’all → Yawl: As in “How are yawl doing today?” A yawl is a type of sailboat.

Se*cy/Ce*cy → Sea*sea: Most words that start with “se” or “ce” and end with “cy” can be double sea puns: seacresea (secrecy), sealibasea (celibacy).

Should* → Shoald*: A “shoal” can refer to a large group of fish, or an area of shallow water, or an underwater sand bank. We can use “shoal” be used to make puns like: shoald (should), shoalder (shoulder), shoaldering.

Show l* → Shoal: This is a subtle one because it involves a word break. Whenever you use the word “show”, and the following word starts with an “L”, then you can replace “show” with “shoal” (a shoal is a large school of fish). For example: “That’s cool! You should shoal Liam.” and “She laughs when we shoal little blue flowers to her.”.

*tual* → *shoal*: As mentioned above, A “shoal” can refer to a large group of fish, or an area of shallow water, or an underwater sand bank. If a word contains “tual” it can often be replaced with “shoal” for a cute little pun: actshoal (actual), actshoality (actuality), intellectshoal (intellectual), ritshoal (ritual), spiritshoal, mutshoally, eventshoal, eventshoally, conceptshoal, conceptshoalise, virtshoal, contractshoal, factshoal, factshoally, perpetshoal, textshoal, contextshoal, perceptshoal, punctshoal, instinctshoal, actshoally, habitshoally.

*sole → *shoal: As in “The shoal of my shoe is worn down.” and “Your new gaming conshoal is cool.” and “Yeah, he’s a bit of an asshoal.”

Defin* → Dolphin: As in “We dolphinitely need more time to finish the mission.” and “What is the dolphinition of this word?” and “Please dolphine this word.” and “It’s the dolphinitive source of Nordic history.”

Endorphines → Endolphins: As in “I love that rush of endolphins you get after a good hard swimming session.”

Bubbly: “bubbly” has a “this water is bubbly” sense and a “he has a really bubbly personality” sense.

Combine → Combrine: As in “With our power combrinedwe should be able to defeat them.” and “It’s what you get when you combrine salt and water”. Similar puns can be made for most words ending in “bine”: turbrine (turbine), concubrine (concubine), columbrine (columbine).

Specific → Pacific: As in “You need to be more pacific.” and “Are you sure you have the pacifications for this?” and “Pacifically, there are two apples and three nectarines”.

Wish → Fish: As in “I just fish we had more time!” and “If you rub the lamp you get three fishes“. See the entry on fish puns for more.

Stark → Shark: As in “The shark contrast between his and his boyfriend’s attire was intriguing.” and “The old, shark house stood looming above us”.

*ways → *waves: Words than end in “ways” can be made into bad wave puns: alwaves(always), railwaves (railways), sidewaves, pathwaves, lengthwaves, doorwaves.

Title → Tidal: As in “I like it, but I’m not sure on the tidal” and “Use ‘Ms.’ as her tidal” and “The championship tidal match is tomorrow morning.”

Acquaintance → Aquaintance: As in “I don’t know her well, she’s just an aquaintance“.

Naughty → Nauty: As in “There’s that nauty sailor again”.

Tied → Tide: As in “I’m tide up at the moment, can someone else help?” and “Yep, they tide the knot!”

Tidy → Tidey: As in “After the party we need to tidey the beach.”

Gullible → Seagullible: As in “Kyani is so seagullible!”

Crazy → Cray-sea: As in “He is so craysea!” and “Enough of this crayseaness!”. Hyphen is, of course, optional.

Turn → Tern: A “tern” is a sea bird similar to a seagull, but smaller and with a forked tail.

About/Abode → Aboat: As in “What aboat the captain?” and “Welcome to my aboat!”

Fission → Fishin’: As in “Nuclear fishin’ is an exciting new technology.” See the entry on fish puns for more.

Birth → Berth: A “berth” is a ship’s allotted place at a dock or wharf. Examples: “Lucky I was using berth control!” and “Nothing but my berthday suit!”

Fathom: A “fathom” is a unit of length equal to 6 feet (~1.8m) and is most commonly used in reference to the depth of water. Example sentences: “I can’t fathom what she means.” and “It’s completely unfathomable!”

Strip → Ship: As in “A weird ship-tease” and “A thin blue ship of metal” and “I’m shipping you of your privileges.”

Properly → Propellorly: As in “Propellorly lame, if you ask me.” and “Finish the job propellorly.”

Dinghy → Dingy: A “dinghy” is a small boat and it sounds a bit like the word “dingy” which has multiple slang definitions including “gloomy and drab”.

Admirably → Admiralably: As in “You handled that admiralably, son.”

Swell: “Swell” has several meanings: “the rolling movement of waves”, “become larger in size” and “excellent/wonderful/fashionable” to name a few. Example sentences: “Dude, that was swell.” and “I can sense his ego swelling as we speak.”

Assail: As in “We were assailed by pirates on our way here.” and “This ship is unassailable.”

I’m out of → Armada: An “armada” is a fleet of warships. Example sentences: “This is scary! Armada here!” and “Armada boat puns, do you have any?”.

You t* → Yacht*: If a word beginning with “t” follows the word “you”, a yacht pun can often be made. For example: “You’ll never know till yachtry.” and “I’m glad I bumped into yachtoday.”

Maria → Marina: As in “Marina, could you please pass the pepper?”

Maureen/Mareen → Marine: As in “Marine, your name works well as boat pun.”

Boat-Related Phrases

Common phrases, idioms and cliches which are related to boats can be used for some subtle and witty word play. Here is a list of the boat themed phrases that we’ve found so far:

A stern talking to

Off the hook

Boy meets girl (Buoy meets gull)

Go to hell (hull)

They tied (tide) the knot

Batten down the hatches

Harboring strong feelings

Rock the boat

Pleasure craft

Hanging about (aboat)

All for naught (nautical)

Above board

As helpful as a screen door on a submarine

Throwing the baby out with the bathwater (bilge water)

Loose lips sink ships

Barge right in

Drown your sorrows

Drunk as a sailor

Fish out of water

He’s fishing for compliments

Hook, line and sinker,

A sea change

Knots in one’s stomach

Rats abandon a sinking ship

Plain sailing

She’s not the only fish in the sea

Strait and narrow

Still waters run deep

Take the wind out of his sails

Three sheets in the wind

Throw caution to the winds

To fish in troubled waters

Captain of one’s soul

Cast your bread upon the waters

Come hell or high water

Dead in the water

Devil and the deep blue sea

Different kettle of fish

A whale of a good time

Dock your pay

From sea to shining sea

Get your second wind

Anchors aweigh

Hold at bay

Any port in a storm

I didn’t come down the clyde in a banana boat

In hot water

Keep your head above water

Know which way the wind blows

Like a cork in the ocean

May the wind be at your back

A fine kettle of fish

Sleep with the fishes

Sink or swim

Something smells fishy

Tell that to the marines

That’s water under the bridge

Up shit creek without a paddle

Walk the plank

Wind swept hair

Water over the dam

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Boat-Related Words

There are likely hundred more boat puns to be made, and that aren’t included in this Punpedia entry, so here’s a list of boat-related words to help you in your pun authorship process. If you come up with a good one, please share it with us in the comments at the bottom of the page!

Why were cruises cheaper before steam boats were invented? – Becauses cruises were always on sale

Do you want to keep paddling in circles or not? It’s an either oar situation.

I’m not one for buoyancy, but whatever floats your boat.

Big sale on rowing paddles at my local shop. It’s quite an oar deal.

I refused to live in the same cabin as the captain. This didn’t boat dwell with him.

Old sailors never die, they just get a little dinghy.

I can’t think of any more boat puns. Canoe?

A tanker transporting blue paint collided into another tanker carrying red paint. Both crews were marooned.

Why did the admiral decide against buying a new hat? – He was afraid of cap sizing.

Boat Pun Images

Looking for visual boat puns? We’ve got you covered. Here’s some beautiful and terrible puns in image-form. If you find a good one that isn’t included here, or if you create you own, please share it with us by linking in the comments!

Did this Punpedia entry help you?

All stocked up on boat puns? Or maybe you’re looking for something more specific that wasn’t in this entry? More boat jokes? More visual puns? A bigger list of boat puns that you can use in conversation? Whatever the case, please let us know in the comments! One of our curators or a member of the Punpedia community will do their best to help you out. And as always, if you have any boat puns that we don’t, please share them with us in the comments! Thanks for visiting Punpedia 🙂